Marketing plans and promotions

Christmas is round the corner, things cannot sit still while I'm away, things have to go ahead. Working day and night, I managed to prepare a mailer, a fridge magnet, a field survey, a Christmas Catalog. These are things that will be used as part of our promotional and marketing campaigns for the up-coming festive season.

Here's how my fridge magnet looks like

It's going to be a flat piece of magnet. Placed an order for quite a bit, to give out as part of our promotions and marketing campaign. Hope it works, if not I'm going to be quite cross. It's going to take a while for them to get this out, so I'll better get it done before I leave. if not we're going to have to wait till next year to do this. I really want to kickk this off together with my christmas catalog.

Quite a bit of work I've come up with in such a short period of time - it's amazing, how I managed to pull it off. Even I'm impressed myself. I should give myself a raise soon.

Austrian Wine Trip

Yippee, we finalised the Austrian trip. I'm going to Austria to learn more about their wines. It's going to be a fantastic trip - I'll bet.

It's my first trip to Europe, and it's to the classical music capital of the world. A place where beautiful symphonies were created. And also a place that's has a strong German influence, in terms of its food and wine culture. I'm just so excited.

I started reading up on Austria and it's food and wine culture this morning, visited the library and borrowed books and a DVD by Jancis Robinson (of BBC), trying to soak up everything I can about Austria, got a book on German cuisine, which came up as a very easy read (but not so easy to carry).

Based on the Itinerary, we'll be going to 13 Wineries...like wow. How fantastic can it get?

Travelling from Vienna, down to the famous regions of the Wachau, Burgenland and even Südsteiermark (which is less well known).

It's a chance to have such serious tasting sessions with the people who actually made the wine. What a great opportunity this is.

Why 3 little pigs are better than Chicken Little

If you are a foodie, you would realise that I'm making Babi Buah Keluak, and not Ayam Buah Keluak. Those that realise that I've swapped the chicken and replaced it with pork - pork ribs to be exact.

Why I think the swine is mightier than the feeble chicken, and I think that in this case it's not size that matters, but a question of taste. I've been brought up on tasteless and yes even close to horribly tasting chicken - the plight of living in the modern world of supermarkets where speed in bringing up the chicken to be slaughtered is faster than chicken little can save the world.

Not only do I find chicken meat lacking in that ultra-umph factor, but it's not the sort to retain it's meat texture after hours of simmering on a charcoal stove. Pork ribs on the other hand retains it's structure days after being in the pot; and Buah Keluak is a dish that if you kept it over night, the taste only gets better and better. You just don't get the same thing if you cooked it with chicken.

This isn't the only dish which I've replaced with pork. There are many instances, where I think the use of pork enhances the flavour of the overall dish.

Babi Buah Keluak

We're preparing to cook Babi Buah Keluak for a house party this weekend for a client. Preparation for this dish starts tonight.

For those that are not familiar with what this is....this Buah Keluak??
I had recalled that I had once invited a Japanese friend to dine at my home, when I had cooked this special Peranakan dish. She thought I had placed little pieces of rock into the curry.

Buah Keluak (click here to get pic)
Buah Keluak is like blue cheese and durian - it's an acquired taste. Buah Keluah is actually the nut of the Kepayang" tree, which grows wild in Indonesia and parts of Malaysia. It's a dark brown - near black nut that's rough like a bark on the outside. The size of each nut is about a small breadroll.

What my grandma taught me.....
we'll break open the buah keluak, check if the nut is good or bad. Bad nuts taste --well bad (actually it's got this rotten taste). Good ones will have the taste that we've come to love. What we do is to check all the buah keluak and then scoop out the flesh from one nut and stuff it into the other nut - to make it 'full'.

Unlike the other Peranakans who do it a slightly different way.
They mince the flesh of the nut, with pork and shrimp, add seasoning then stuff it back into the shell. According to my grandma, that's the 'Hokkien Style' and ours is the 'Penang Style'. Hope to put in some photos in my later postings.